Entain has put figures to a problem the licensed industry has watched grow for years: the UK’s illegal gambling market has more than tripled since 2019, and offshore operators now take an estimated £685 million in Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) a year from British consumers. The operator behind Ladbrokes and Coral published the data alongside a consumer campaign fronted by viral figure “Big John”, part of a wider push to move the black market up the regulatory agenda.
The numbers come from H2 Gambling Capital. Offshore GGY rose from £200 million in 2019 to £685 million in 2025, while offshore betting turnover climbed from £5 billion to £16.6 billion over the same period. The illegal market, in H2’s assessment, is no longer a fringe of the sector but a parallel one.
A market measured in billions
The scale is not confined to the UK. Yield Sec estimates that illegal operators generated €80.6 billion across Europe in 2024, equivalent to 71% of the total online gambling market on the continent. Separate research has put unregulated online gambling activity in the trillions worldwide, a measure of how much wagering now sits outside any licensing regime. TGE has covered that global picture in its report on how unregulated online gambling reached $5.9 trillion in 2025.
Entain defines the illegal market as operators that accept customers or market services in jurisdictions where they are not licensed. In the UK that includes offshore casinos without a Gambling Commission licence, “Not on GAMSTOP” sites aimed at self-excluded players, crypto casinos operating outside regulated financial systems, and gambling promoted through social media and messaging apps. Many copy the branding and site layouts of licensed operators, which makes them hard for consumers to identify.
The consumer protection gap
Unlicensed sites do not offer self-exclusion tools, safer gambling interventions, affordability checks or access to independent dispute resolution. Entain’s own customer research found that 48% of customers were unsure of the difference between licensed and unlicensed sites, and 25% had encountered unlicensed operators. More than half of those encounters started on social media.
The exposure extends to younger and more vulnerable groups. Research cited by Entain suggests more than one in five gamblers aged 18 to 24 have used unregulated sites, and around 420,000 UK school children are estimated to be potentially engaging with unlicensed gambling products. “Not on GAMSTOP” marketing, aimed squarely at people who have already self-excluded from regulated gambling, has become a recurring tactic.
The tax argument
Entain’s intervention lands in the middle of a live debate over gambling taxation. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has forecast a shortfall of around £500 million in UK gambling tax revenues by 2029-30 as consumers migrate to unlicensed operators. The company’s position is that heavier taxes can push more play offshore rather than raise more revenue.
“Disproportionately increasing gambling taxes will not only have a detrimental impact on our industry but also heighten risks for customers. As seen in other countries, punitive tax increases can reduce tax revenues while driving players to illegal, unregulated operators,” said Stella David, Entain’s chief executive.
The company points to the Netherlands, where spending with unlicensed operators overtook the regulated market following a gambling tax increase in 2025, as evidence of the pattern. The claim is contested territory. Regulators weighing tax rises argue that leakage is manageable with enforcement, while operators warn it is not, and both sides read the same market data differently.
A six-point framework
Entain sets out six areas for action against the illegal market: payment disruption to block transactions to unlicensed operators; platform accountability requiring online platforms to verify that gambling advertisers are licensed; sponsorship reform to stop unlicensed operators gaining visibility through sport; stronger enforcement through faster site takedowns and prosecutions; consumer awareness; and a competitive regulated market that gives players a reason to stay inside it.
Several of those strands are already in motion. Entain has pressed Premier League clubs over unlicensed sponsors and published research tracing a coordinated illegal gambling network operating across UK social media. The consumer-facing side runs through the Big John video campaign and the Betting and Gaming Council’s (BGC) “Spot the Black Market” quiz, which challenges players to tell licensed sites from illegal ones. Entain has also produced an Illegal Gambling Playbook setting out a cross-sector framework for enforcement, regulation, platform accountability and consumer education.
What comes next
The test is whether the evidence changes policy. Entain is making the case that the illegal market grows fastest where regulation and tax are tightest, and it wants that read into decisions on UK duty rates and platform obligations. Governments elsewhere are moving on the same problem: Greece has opened a consultation on a gambling reform bill explicitly targeting the black market. The figures Entain has put on the table give the debate a number to argue over. What they do not settle is whether the answer is lighter taxation, harder enforcement, or both at once.
Source: Entain
